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Tag Archives: hillary clinton

Traditionally, debates are mostly boring affairs, where we’re lucky to get a highlight or two. But, we know what we’re getting, going in. A couple of boxers who jab a little bit, and largely stick to the script, while answering questions the best they can.

Even though candidates aren’t afforded an opening statement anymore, they use their allotted time for their first answer to put the debate into the context they want. In 2012, for example, the first question went to President Obama. It was, how would he create jobs.

Yesterday, I posted something about Donald Trump’s likely debate strategy – lie, lie, and lie again, knowing that it would fall to Hillary Clinton to correct him, now that moderators have decided against challenging lies.

Forcing Clinton to do the job means she will have nearly no time to talk about what she believes, what she wants to do, or to launch attacks on Trump.

Donald Trump 9.0 was launched last night (or is it 10.0? 9.5? I lost track).

For a brief moment in time, fueled by a teleprompter filled with messaging from new campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and campaign CEO, Breitbart’s Stephen Bannon, Trump had a narrative that finally worked.

To use a phrase of Trump’s, I hated to just give him credit for something, “believe me.”

Now, if he regresses to his usual self, he’ll say something horrible and the campaign will be caught up in a whirlwind of controversy. But what if he doesn’t? This new campaign message can work, quite effectively. So, what should Hillary do?

He had a golden opportunity to write a campaign-changing piece, and he whiffed. His piece focused on Brexit as a warning to Democrats to take seriously the negative economic impact of the global economy. Essentially, it was the same campaign speech he gave 1,000 times, recycled, using Brexit as the hook. It was largely ignored — not because he doesn’t have a point — but because he offered up nothing new.

Here is the op-ed he should have written. Here is the op-ed that would have made an impact on the debate. It would have given him new relevancy, and stature, as he continues to try to reform the Democratic Party.